Spaghetti Dinners -- Rob Borcic

South Lancaster has the dubious distinction of being the easternmost town in the easternmost county of Eastern Ontario. The green, rolling hills must have reminded the early Scottish settlers of home, prompting them to name the area Glengarry county. But to a boy who had spent his first dozen or so years living a cosmopolitan life in the metropolis of Montreal, it might as well have been on another planet.

Moving from a city of two million to a town of two hundred usually means you'll have fewer choices. Fewer stores, fewer restaurants, fewer friends. In fact, I found exactly one of each. The only boy close to my age was Jean, an anglicized French Canadian kid. Johnny seemed worldly to me - he was allowed to drive his father's speedboat at age 13. But, like the local restaurant, he didn't conform to my sense of taste - he swore a lot, averaging at least one expletive per sentence, and he didn't see the importance of education. At least he seemed to know how to read.

Johnny's father was a supervisor of some sort with the local office of the ministry of transportation, meaning that he drove a snowplow at work, and a Lincoln Continental everywhere else. He was also the vice president of the South Lancaster Fish and Game Club. Johnny, being the son of the vice president, had some stature in 'theClub', and consequently, it became the highlight of his social life. I expected the club would be a bunch of middle aged men drinking beer and bragging about the deer they almost shot, or the fish that got away. I was wrong - it was worse than that. It was a bunch of middle aged men drinking beer and arguing over the interpretation of club rules. After the meeting was over, I told Johnny that I found it boring, and that I didn't want to go anymore. Johnny was disappointed, but told me that I'd enjoy the tournament, or tourney as he called it.

"What kind of tourney?", I asked.

"Curling."

"Curling?" I had a vision of a row of hairstylists waiting at a starting line, with columns of straight-haired women waiting in chairs.

Seeing my expression, he explained, "You know - you play on ice, you slide these big rocks along the ice, and people with brooms sweep along in front of the rock."

At this point, an early childhood memory came to me. I was sitting in front of the TV waiting impatiently while some sports show preempted my Saturday afternoon cartoons. Men were shoving huge round rocks around, while other men furiously swept brooms in front of the rock. "Why would I want to do that?"

"It's fun. And after the tourney, there's a really good spaghetti dinner, and there'll be lots of girls there."

Food. Girls. What more could a teenage boy ask for? "OK. I'll go. I like pasta."

Tourney Day arrived. I walked over to Johnny's house to find him wrapping black electrical tape around the front of his shoes. "It lets you slide on the ice better. Want some?"

I was worried enough about being able to stand up on the ice, so I turned down his offer.

We arrived at the curling club and went inside. A group of angry looking men immediately pounced on Johnny's Father. "They say we can't have beer on the ice!" The group's leader complained. "I never spilled a drop in all these years, and just 'cause some kid drops a pitcher, now they say I hafta keep my beer at the bar!"

After a minute or so, Johnny dragged me away. "C'mon. Let's find out what teams we're on."

My team consisted of three men in their forties or fifties. One of them, a stubby guy with a salt and pepper beard welcomed me with, "Skip says you're our handicap. Don't worry about the rules, just do what he says."

Skip was a tall, thin guy, not quite clean shaven. When he spoke, he smelled like whiskey. "Y'ever play before?" I shook my head no. "All right boys, we got a virgin. Try not to hurt 'im." And then, to me, "Just do what I says. Nothin' fancy."

It only took me a little while to figure out that 'Skip' was his title, not his name.

The first game went all right. The ice, although slippery, was pebbled, meaning it had little bumps on it, which made it possible for me to stand up without holding on to anything. The rocks were big, hockey pucks made of granite, with handles on top. They weighed around forty pounds, which I found out when I tried to pick one up. Fortunately, the game involves sliding the rocks around on the ice - no weight lifting required. It turned out that I had plenty of power, but was a bit short in the control department. By the end of the first game, my name had changed from 'Handicap' to 'The Unguided Missile'.

In between games, I got to meet some of the girls. They were all either under ten or over forty. I felt cheated, but I consoled myself with thoughts of dinner.

By the end of the third game, I still had no clue what the score was. Skip and the other two guys shook my hand. The stubby guy who had welcomed me offered a few words of encouragement, "you did OK, kid." I never did learn any of their names.

Johnny came up and congratulated me. "I think I screwed up pretty bad," I confessed.

Confused, Johnny said, "But your team won." Apparently, my lack of skill hadn't been as much of a handicap as I thought it had been.

Climbing the stairs to the club hall, we were greeted by a peculiar smell. Johnny seemed to enjoy it, I started to worry.

A matronly woman in an orange spattered apron handed me a plate, "We're low on spaghetti, but got plenty bread an' sauce, so take lotsa bread." The bread was sliced white sandwich bread, stacked in piles like little towers of Pisa. We had our choice of butter or margarine.

A little further along, another sauce stained woman took my plate. she winked at me, "You want lotsa sauce, right?" I nodded. She handed me back a plate filled almost to the edge with orange sauce. Chunks of what I hoped were tomatoes and a couple of meatballs floated on top. Seeing my worried expression, she said, "the spaghetti's under the sauce. You'll see it when you mix it up."